Besides for being healthier for you, learning how to grow your own vegetables reduces your food miles and helps you to eat local (really local!) seasonal produce. Whether you have always grown something of you own and regardless of where you live, growing your own veggies in your home vegetable garden is one of the must have skills.

Canning surplus produce

Sometimes your garden can produce more that what you can eat. You will need homesteading skills in canning to use up a glut of tomatoes, store peas and beans or pickle chillies and peppers.

Back to basic’s cleaning

Despite what the shelves and shelves of cleaning materials in your local store tell you, eco friendly cleaning is quite simple. You can leave behind the chemical mixes which are polluting our water supply and use some simple home made cleaners to keep your home hygienically clean.

Soap Making

Soap making is shunned by many as a process that is too difficult, when in actual fact it is a skill that you can learn quite easily. How good it is to know that your skin, and that of your family, is just getting some pure ingredients on it to stay hygienically clean. If you keep goats on your homestead, you can learn how to make goats milk soap too!

Sewing

Whether you will sew to mend, create your own soft home furnishings or sew your children’s clothes, basic hand and machine sewing is a good homesteading skill to own. As children get older and have more specific tastes in clothes you may not continue to sew their clothes for them but turn your attention to other areas. Buy mending clothes, instead of just throwing them away, you will also be taking that first step in recycling skills – REUSE!

Knitting

Honestly, I am not a big knitter. But through the years I have knitted jerseys for my younger children, blanket squares for warm winter blankets and booties for babies, gloves and beanies for ourselves. If you want to learn to knit, then Google “learn to knit” and a host of sites pop up to help you!

You can also join Ravelry.com for wonderful forums, groups and free knitting patternsCandle Making

There is something so romantic about learning to make your own perfumed candles. While it is no longer a necessity on the modern world to have candles for light, candle making is one of those nice, but not necessary homesteading skills. People who have excess goats milk have been known to make candles with it.

Keeping chickens

Keeping urban chickens is a simple process as your flock is small and disease is not rife. If you are on a rural homestead and you have the space for a larger flock, for eggs and slaughter, then you have to watch over your flock carefully.

Beekeeping

As I write this section of my website, we are actively involved in researching beekeeping in an urban setting. This is an exciting step for our family as not only will it help our pollination problems that we have had with our squashes, it will also bring more bees to help the declining bee population in our town. And we hope that after a year or so we will harvest some delicious honey!

If you are going to be moving onto a large plot where you can keep your own slaughter animals, then you may need further homesteading skills in how to keep goats, sheep and cattle. On this page you will find some of the best homesteading books which will cover how to keep animals for slaughter amongst may other homesteading skills that you can learn.

Tools and Equipment

Wondering what tools or equipment you will need to start on your homesteading journey? Worry no more! Read Homesteading Tools and Equipment for an informed viewpoint to help get you started. One invaluable piece of equipment for most homesteading lifestyles is the good old tractor, so also check out the www.rbauction.com site for tractors for sale.

Lastly, do check out some of my favourite homesteading links which are conveniently placed on a separate page for you.

Go Greener

Let’s be honest, sometimes living a simple green lifestyle is not always easier. In fact it can add more time to your day. So here’s the challenge… chooose to slow down the pace of your life. Budget more time for the urban homesteading pursuits that are listed above.Make it your goal to learn a new homesteading skill each month, whether it be learning how to make soap, or how to make compost…give it your best shot!

Your Self Sufficiency Journey

Inspire other people with your own story. Share your self sufficient lifestyle journey with us, whether you are living off grid on a farm, on grid in the city or are in between the two.

SEEDLING PROTECTOR
The 30 broad beans seeds I’ve received recently from Wendy, have germinated and started to appear one by one through the sawdust mulch.

I was worried …

Why You Should Grow Your Own Vegetables Not rated yet
When you harvest your crops they are totally fresh and taste completely different to shop-bought produce. The only distance they’ve travelled is from the …

How To Improve Your Garden Soil – Part 1 Not rated yet
There are several ways to improve garden soil. These include cultivation techniques, using manures and composts, mulches, drainage, and applying fertilisers….

FLOWERS THAT KEEP INSECTS AT BAY Not rated yet
Throughout the years I’ve learned to make use of certain plants to assist me to keep insects at bay, thereby increasing my vegetable and herb yield annually….

LEMON – ONE OF NATURE’S SUPER FRUIT Not rated yet
I’ve just received a wonderful e-mail listing all the health benefits of a lemon as well as a tip to make use of the whole unpeeled lemon too. Place the …